


Never After

by yarroway



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 17:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3177773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yarroway/pseuds/yarroway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Wilson died, House had to make a decision.  Now he has to make another one.  Warning: this is not a happy fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never After

House is in the warehouse lab carefully adjusting ingredients when the heavy steel door opens. D-Dawg comes in. He is a Taub-sized man with dreadlocks and a vague, vacant gaze that invites people not to take him seriously. He doesn't normally wear it around House, but right behind D is a new guy. He's stocky and middle aged, with a doughy face and straggly beard he's dyed brown. He looks once around the room, then tries to sink into the background.

Curtis enters behind them.

"Doc, my man," says Curtis. "How's it hanging?"

House tilts his head, like he's really thinking about the answer to that one. "A little to the left," he says finally.

Curtis grins. House knows he gets away with the stupid jokes and a whole lot more because Curtis likes him, and he also knows that Curtis likes him because he is a model employee. House is good at his job. Sometimes he gets creative, inventing some new take on a product that their competitors can't ever match. Also, House's labs never blow up and his drugs are always exactly the quality Curtis wants them to be. When House came to him for a job, Curtis had been part of one of a handful of warring factions in Atlantic City. Now he is the king. This is in part due to House, and in part due to Curtis' intelligence and ruthlessness. Curtis is an animal, vicious and amoral. He does not try to hide that. House doesn't like Curtis, but he does appreciate the lack of hypocrisy.

"This is Mikey," D says, gesturing at the new guy. "We're showing him around." He turns to Mikey. "This is Doc, our very own Walter White."

Mikey nods at him and puts his hand in his pocket.

"How you doing," House greets him. He doesn't expect an answer, and he doesn't get one. Instead he moves over to his supply table and rolls a joint. He can feel Mikey's eyes on him the whole time.

The tour is almost finished when House rejoins them. House can see Mikey's head tilt to track his movements by sound when he's not in line of sight.

"Here you go, new guy," House calls, holding out the cigarette. Mikey doesn't move to take it. "SOP," House explains. "New guys get a welcome basket. This is the finest stuff in the city." He holds it out, smiling. Mikey has no way to know that House is lying but Curtis and D-Dawg do. Because they are smart they do not ask questions.

"Don't light up until you get home," Curtis adds. He's good at this. If House were still running a team he'd want Curtis on it.

Mikey shifts his weight forward. He lifts his right hand towards the gift.

Like lightning, D and Curtis pull their guns on him. Mikey freezes. "Guys, what's the matter?"

"Yeah, what's the problem?" Curtis asks House. His gun is pointing right at Mikey's heart. It doesn't waver.

D-Dawg doesn't say anything. He's slouched against a lab table looking boneless and out of it. His gun is more or less aimed at the floor.

"I've met this guy before," House says. Mikey's eyes are on him, pleading silently. He's in the right this time, Mikey is, trying to rid the world of drug dealers and killers, and there was a point when that would have mattered to House.

It still might. He's not sure. There is a pause as House tries to decide what to do.

"I hope you're not going to hold the past against me, Doc," Mikey says. He's sweating. "I've forgotten all about it. I didn't even remember your face when I saw you here, and I'm forgetting it all over again now. I won't tell the guys I saw you. Don't tell lies about me just because you're angry about that girl."

Bad feelings over a girl are convincing enough that Curtis takes a step back, covering both Mikey and House with his gun.

House stares at Mikey. He can see the fear in his eyes. House has power over him now. House remembers when Mikey was the one who had the power. He remembers what Mikey did to him, what he did to _Wilson_.

Just like that the decision is made. "His name is Detective Michael Tritter. He worked in Princeton when I met him."

Tritter lunges for the door. Without seeming to move, D puts a bullet in Tritter's leg, and the big detective goes down. D searches him as Curtis stands guard. He removes some weaponry, which doesn’t prove House's story, and a wire, which does.

*****

Later that day House watches as Curtis' guys question Tritter. At first he refuses to talk, and then he tries to goad them into killing him quickly. Neither works.

At one point he stops screaming and gasps two barbed, bitter questions at House.

*****

The ocean is unsettled. House leans on the boardwalk railing and watches the whitecaps.

_What happened to you? What does Doctor Wilson think of you now?_

Wilson died two years ago. House had planned to go with him, but Wilson asked him not to.

_Don't punish yourself, House. The cancer--all of this--it isn't your fault. I want you to be here after I'm gone. I want you to have a life, a whole life. I want you to try to be happy._

He isn't happy, but he isn't miserable. He isn't anything, really. The numbness he'd always sought in Vicodin came to him on its own when Wilson died.

House takes one last drag on his Marlboro and throws it away. Then he heads back inside to watch.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks go to srsly_yes for beta, and to everyone who participated in the discussion that sparked this fic. Also as always, House, M.D. belongs to David Shore, Universal Television, Heel and Toe Productions, and a lot of other people who are not me. I'm not making any money from this.


End file.
